One of the best things I did at the recent Pizza Expo in Las Vegas was to go to the dough making demo put on by General Mills. Interestingly the chef mixing the dough knew how much the mixing process and kneading of the dough would increase the finished dough temp. I had never measured mine.

Also the chef mixing and kneading the dough in the stand mixer, stopped every 2 min to show where the dough development was. I had never done that.

As a relative rookie, having been making pizza dough for about a year, and having been on this forum for about 6-8 months, I find that I have been doing things a lot because I read that it should be that way. What I am now suggesting is that as a newbie you should do your own tests to confirm what you read.

So today I wanted to see just how much heat my mixer brings to the party .

I started with 200g of flour which was 64.2F124 g of water at 69.3 F

I added 0.6 g IDY, 4g salt, 7 g EVOO and some Splenda. I intend to make tea rolls out of this.

After mixing the flour and water etc until the flour was almost hydrated the temp of the dough was 70.9FAt 2 min of mixing the dough temp was 69.9FAt 4 min of kneading the dough temp was 69.7FAt 6 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.0 FAt 8 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.0FAt 10 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.6FAt 12 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.6F

I stopped at 12 min. Besides testing the temp, at each 2 min I took a bit of dough and tested it for gluten development. At the demo the chef showed us how to stretch a small piece of dough and tear it until it looks like a zipper.

At any rate, this test has shown me what my mixer does to the temp of my dough. If like some, you want your dough temp to be x when finished kneading, it is helpful to know what your particular mixer does.

The mixer I used is a Bosch compact. I used a dough hook on speed # 1

From this test I assume that my starting dough temp, when hydrated, will be about the same as my finished dough. All other things being equal.

After mixing the flour and water etc until the flour was almost hydrated the temp of the dough was 70.9FAt 2 min of mixing the dough temp was 69.9FAt 4 min of kneading the dough temp was 69.7FAt 6 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.0 FAt 8 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.0FAt 10 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.6FAt 12 min of kneading the dough temp was 70.6F

...

At any rate, this test has shown me what my mixer does to the temp of my dough. If like some, you want your dough temp to be x when finished kneading, it is helpful to know what your particular mixer does.

Mark,

It looks like you are saying the dough dropped 1.0F after the first two minutes of mixing? and another 0.2F after the next two minutes? and the kneaded dough ended up cooler than before you started? This seems rather unlikely unless the bowl was really, really cold. Also, if your flour was 64.2F and your water was 69.3F, how could the dough start at 70.9F?

Keep in mind that the batch size, hydration, mixer speed, equipment temperature, ambient temperature, etc. will all affect the rate of temperature increase, and they are not necessarily linear. You also won't really know how much of the increase came from the mixer unless you also have a control batch outside the mixer to compare. The conductivity of whatever your dough rests on/in also matters.

I am not exactly sure what Mark did either, but if his flour was kept at the same temperature as his kitchen, then his room temperature would have been around 64.2 degrees F. I also noted that Mark said that he stopped at each two-minute interval to check the dough itself for gluten development. Each such stop consumed time although his data suggests that his mixer may have been operating at a speed that kept adding heat to the dough. I mention this because I have seen kneaded doughs readily give up heat to the lower temperature surroundings and approach room temperature, and it has always surprised me how fast this can happen. It is even more pronounced when the dough is subjected to one or more rest periods, including an autolyse rest period.

I agree with you on everything you said in the last paragraph of your post. Unless Mark makes only one type of dough, in the same amount each time, and makes the dough the same way each time, using the same mixer speed(s), his machine's friction factor will vary all over the place.

Peter & Scott, thank you both for your insight. One question I asked myself was if flour is one temp and water is another temp, when mixed will the final temp be the average of the two or will the dough temp change based on the individual changes in either water or flour? My dough after mixing was obviously higher than the average of the two components. My bowl was at room temp as was my flour, after sitting on a cookie sheet in the room for an hour. I store my flour at about 40 F.

The bottom line to me is that the dough temp did not drastically change with kneading. Also that I do need to get my flour to at least room temp so as not to be adding too hot water that may damage the yeast.

Next batch I will do without stopping the stand mixer for 12 min and see where the temps are.

You're the second person in the past couple weeks to confuse me with Scott. What gives?

As for the dough temperature - flour and water probably have different heat capacities (the amount of heat required to raise a certain mass one degree) - i.e. one contains more heat at the same mass and temperature. Therefore, it's likely not a simple weighted average of the two.

You write "My dough after mixing was obviously higher than the average of the two components." However, you also said after mixing and hydrating (and I presume before the 12 minutes of mixing), the temp was 70.9F yet after 12 minutes of mixing and kneading in the machine, the temp was only 70.6F - a drop of 0.3F after mixing - which doesn't seem to make sense.

You're the second person in the past couple weeks to confuse me with Scott. What gives?

As for the dough temperature - flour and water probably have different heat capacities (the amount of heat required to raise a certain mass one degree) - i.e. one contains more heat at the same mass and temperature. Therefore, it's likely not a simple weighted average of the two.

You write "My dough after mixing was obviously higher than the average of the two components." However, you also said after mixing and hydrating (and I presume before the 12 minutes of mixing), the temp was 70.9F yet after 12 minutes of mixing and kneading in the machine, the temp was only 70.6F - a drop of 0.3F after mixing - which doesn't seem to make sense.

Craig, to the first point about getting your name wrong, In my defense.... I AM GUILTY. I apologize profusely. Scott123 and you both give excellent advise and I am too stupid to get the names right.I also can not explain the difference in temps from start to finish. Maybe a sudden chill in the room, ... ghosts have been know to do that.